flat city

When I arrived in Vladimir the night before, the first thing I noticed were the hills. St. Petersburg is a very flat city and since we had only traveled to other flat cities from there, I hadn’t realized that I missed uneven terrain.

(Another example of poor understanding of painting buildings)

(But they also have beautiful buildings – the blue one on the corner)

Christina and I had a late morning. Unfortunately the lady below me snored very loudly so I could not sleep well. I listened to rock music to drown out all of the noise she made and although that worked, I also know music interrupts peoples’ circadian rhythms when they are trying to sleep, so perhaps it wasn’t the best answer to my problems. That morning again we realized we didn’t have food for breakfast, so we decided to go in search of a café for brunch.

(A random brick church we found on our wanderings)

We picked the café because it said it had a vegan option on the menu, which I was really looking forward to. When we actually looked at the menu we couldn’t find the vegan food, which was very disappointing, but I suppose I could have asked. At the café we both ordered blini and fruit, the blini was very good, but the waitress forgot about the fruit. When we reminded her, she apologized, but proceeded to only bring fruit for one person. We decided to share that fruit instead of asking again for more fruit, so although the situation worked out, but it was still very frustrating. To make the situation more unsatisfying, the waitress of course heard that we had accents and tried to speak to us in English instead. I guess this was her way of trying to be kind and make it easier for us, but I am here to learn Russian so I want to talk to the waitress and order my food in Russian, I don’t want her to talk to me in English. This caused me to later go on a rant to Christina (in Russian) of what I would say to someone if the try to speak to me in English at a restaurant again because I am tired of people always trying to speak to me in English when I am trying to practice my Russian. I said I would tell the waitress or waiter that I am trying to learn Russian and if they don’t speak to me in Russian and let me practice than I will go find a different restaurant at which to eat.

When we left the café, we spent the day wandering where we pleased in order to see the city, but making sure we saw a few key churches and other pieces that were important to Vladimir. The day started out misty, but as it went on, it turned into fog so that our wanderings were smothered in a pool of milky obscurity.

(The Golden Gate)

(The church off to the left of the gate)

The first place we went was to something called the “Golden Gate,” which we actually happened on by accident shortly after leaving the café. Only the top was gold, so I am still mystified as to why it was called the Golden Gate, but places don’t always have logical names. The gate was located in the middle of the street, and there didn’t seem to be a way to actually walk up to it since I didn’t see any crosswalks leading up to it, but I also felt that if I were able to walk up to it, I don’t know what I would do there because it was really just something to look at. Next to the Golden Gate was an unattractive dirt mound that we assumed served as an observation deck, so we took the opportunity and went up there. It gave a view of the side of the Golden Gate and the road below, so I didn’t really understand the point of it. The one building it did give a good view of was a brick church off to the left of the gate.

(A church near the stone cherries and observation deck)

(Looking out from the observation deck)

After some more wandering and finding another observation deck (upon which we found a large sculpture of stone cherries that I did not get a picture of because there was always a crowd around it), Christina and I approached this brick church to go inside. Inside it turned out to be a museum we had read about that we decided we would be interested in seeing if we found it, but that we didn’t want to specifically seek it out. I guess we found it. I am glad we found it too because it had some beautiful pieces inside. The museum was of lacquered boxes, embroidery and glass. There weren’t very many embroidered pieces in the museum, but I was okay with that because I had seen more beautiful embroidery in Lithuania. We were allowed to take pictures anywhere in the museum, but it was very hard to take pictures of the glass work because the displays had lighting that continuously changed. We probably spent half an hour in the museum, and it was beautiful but the tour groups made the experience very frustrating because it was a small museum trying to fit too many people.

(Some examples of lacquered boxes at the museum)

(This one reminded me of Swan Lake)

(Some examples of the glass work follow)

(It was very hard to take pictures of the glass because of the changing lighting and the mirrors placed behind the pieces)

(Trying to not be in the picture here, but the mirrors make it difficult)

By the end of the daylight hours, Vladimir became so foggy that we could not see the top of a church we visited clearly, and we could not see anything beyond another sightseeing platform we visited. We finished visiting all of the areas that we wanted to for the day and decided that trying to see anything at night would be almost useless because the fog was too thick.

(A monument, I am not sure what to, but it had a different person on all three sides)

(Notice as the pictures get progressively foggier)

(We could only see clearly the objects that were within a few yards of us)

(It made taking pictures very difficult – this is a church)

(The front spire of the church after they lit it up for the night, the inside of this church was poorly lit, but very beautiful)

(This is a different church. We went inside of this church the next day and it turned out to be a very poorly constructed museum)

(The same church from a distance)

For dinner we went to a Russian restaurant that apparently brews its own beer. The menu was a bit confusing because it had the beer list as a list of dishes that apparently were supposed to go with the beer. In the end I ended up with a plate of shrimp off of this menu. I enjoyed the shrimp except that they still had everything on, so for each one I had to go through the same process of taking their shells off and it got very tiring towards the end.